The problem I have with Solomons is that each flank is essentially sealed-off from the rest of the battle. It's the same problem with two brothers.
If, at the start of the match, your team lemming-trains hard to one direction, you can tell within 1 minute that you're going to lose that match.

I'm just glad they removed duplicates. No more 4x Emdens!
I also bought 40 mega crates. In no particular order, I received the following:
Monaghan
Huanghe
Aigle
Ashitaka
Duke of York
Abruzzi
Nueve De Julio
Massachusetts
Gascogne
Kronshtadt

What it comes down to is this: BBs aren't going to preload HE on the off chance of running into a DD unless that DD is the only thing left to shoot.
They're not going to swap shells when they see a DD, because chances are, that DD will have vanished before they have a chance to do so.
They're not even going to fire what they've got and reload with HE, because there's probably not going to be a second salvo.
BBs are going to continue spamming AP at DDs. They're just going to get rewarded less for their trouble.

Plastic sheeting finally came in, so I decided to try out a different approach. Instead of painting blues and greens onto the base, I just painted the surface foam and waves, and left the rest clear.
Took me two attempts to come up with something I was happy with.
Here's the first attempt, (which became an "experimental" base, with a sculpted shell splash)
I wasn't happy with the "striped" look of the bow wake, so I went back to some reference material and tried again.
And here it is, next to my initial, painted test.
What do you guys think? Painted or clear? My plan is to buy one or more large gaming mats made of mousepad material, and printed with a sea texture. Standing alone, I personally like the look of the painted version, but I think the clear version would look better on the printed mat. Thoughts?